The Video Diaries
by okh-eshivar
Summary: Sam hadn't realized Lara had created many videos documenting her experiences on Yamatai until they'd uncomfortably settled back into life in the real world. Now, desperate the learn of Lara's brutal journey, she finds the battered camera and steels herself for the whole truth behind Lara's trials and what changed her into the hardened shell she was now.
1. Chapter 1

I don't think I was supposed to find it. Honestly, I hadn't even considered that the thing would have still been functional after everything. I mean, _we_ were barely functional. But I suppose that's the price of having my hands so far into the film world; things stop seeming so real when you're looking through a glass lens, when you're staring at a little, flat versions of the ones you love.

I sit against my bed tiredly and just hold the camera for a while; we'd just had the remnants of our belongings mailed in from Okinawa, Lara with her many relics and journals, and me with my phone, my torn up jacket, and my camera. Out of everything we'd brought, our clothes, our supplies. Our friends. These were the items fate chose for us.

Lara would probably throttle me if I said that out loud. Well, not throttle, obviously, but just furrow her brow and sigh like I'd just punched her in the gut and give me that heavy, glassed over gaze. I hate that look, mostly because I know she's not into all that girly manipulative garbage so when she looks at you like that it means the cogs in her brain are actually thinking around the words you'd said. Lara's the last person that deserves to be hurt, and somehow, she's caught the worst of it in every way.

I flicked through the first five or six of the videos, recalling the footage from the Endurance I'd shot for filler. Whitman's face, freeze-frame and toothy, makes me cringe. That untrustworthy smirk, that terrible down-the-middle part in his hair. Looking at him now, I can't believe any of us bought his bullshit; he looked like the definition of a dirty scumbag. I exhale around a curse and turn the joystick to the right, watching a little too intently when his features twisted for a second and disappeared. I delete the footage of him with the fish, even though the filmmaker in me screamed in response.

The next to click into frame was my peeking in on Lara in her room, nose in her notes and maps. I feel my lips tug at the edges as I watch her bite the inside of her cheek and fuss over her own certainty. Oh, Lara. If only you knew how right you were the whole time.

As I come to the place I think the list would halt, I scroll through another dozen videos by accident. What the hell? I'm sure the last moment I captured on this particular device was Lara and Roth's 'penguin pajama' conversation; I remember because I'd teased her relentlessly for it. These ones aren't titled, and the timestamp is after the shipwreck swallowed the Endurance.

Hesitantly, I press down on the first of the alien additions. It loads up, and I hold my breath.

_6:07 AM_

Lara fidgets with the position of the frame and presses her intertwined fingers against her nose and forehead. Her cheeks are flushed and her skin is wet, smeared with dirt and maybe blood. She takes a long, shaky inhale before speaking, and she doesn't speak for a while.

"_Sam would be angry with me if I didn't document this in her place."_

I cover my mouth with an open palm as my eyes widen at the screen is disbelief. Lara…had taken videos on the island?

"_I should start at the beginning. So much has already happened." _She sniffs, scoots closer to a fire she must have just gotten going a moment ago to stock it, and wipes her eyes anxiously. Even on the small screen I can see how badly she was shaking.

"_I…The Endurance has been shipwrecked. We were caught in a storm in the early morning, I think it might have torn the whole thing in half, I remember falling…"_

I shiver as I recall the frantic shock of the wreck. I'd been on the same side as Roth when it happened, and he was a guy that always had a plan, but Lara and Jonah were trapped on the other end. Honestly, I don't know how we got to shore. I washed up away from everyone, and I'd figured they all found each other on the other side of the beach.

"_I managed to get to shore. When I tried calling for the others, something struck me in the back of the head. I passed out, but I know I was being dragged somewhere."_

I sit up in an alarmed way as she explains waking up in a cave, hung upside down and spun in a mouldering tarp.

"_I had to light myself on fire to get out. I thought at the time it was a good idea, but I fell on something. A piece of rebar."_

Her hand balls around a bloody corner of her abdomen and my heart thrashes with recognition. That wound.

"_I didn't tell Roth I was hurt when I got him on the radio. I…don't want him getting into worse trouble trying to get to me."_

Another long pause, punctuated with a quivering inhale. Slowly, she sits on her knees and lifts the hem of her singlet. I catch myself gasping, though I've seen the wound already. Only, when I saw it, Lara was different. This Lara was scared. She was lost, and alone, and desperate. She wasn't the Lara that could handle an injury that serious, not yet. She was still the Lara that giggled shyly and had trouble staying up late and couldn't stand B-pluses on papers. She looked absolutely terrified.

"_I'm going to track down the others. I found Sam's pack, I think they headed inland. And I need to find food…"_ She looks at the ground for a long time, and speaks only after closing her eyes and counting to three quietly to calm herself down. _"Alright, I'll…ehm…do another if I find anything else."_

She reaches close, and the AV connection cuts.

Holy shit, this is…really important. And there's more. A lot more. I dig my nails into my palms and consider the implications of actually going through these without her present. I mean, should I be looking at these at all? She said she was documenting, since I couldn't…but what if that changes? Like she did?

My heart tightens up in my chest. I want to know what did this to her. I want to see, all of it, from beginning to end. She'll only tell me certain things, and even then, there are instances where I can tell she'd lied. To protect me, I'm sure, but I want to see her story.

With unsure intention, I drag the cursor to the next screenshot, hover for a couple of tense seconds and click on it.

This time, it's just black, audio only. Probably got turned on from all of the bouncing around on her belt; I've got to admire the microphone on that thing, even pressed up against rustling fabric and metal its picked up Whitman's gross, crackly voice. Lara's voice, on the other hand, is lower and not at all like that of a serial killer, so I can only make it out intermittently.

"…_make sense, Doctor Whitman. People…murderers –hope-…"_

"_This is culture, Lara. When we finish our work here, you'll understand. We are standing on a gold mine!"_

"…_need to find our people-Whit-"_

It cuts fast; the system must have noticed that the audio had been tapped with the cap on and turned itself off to conserve battery. But even then, only four hours after the first recording, Lara sounds thoroughly sick of Whitman and his capitalist idealism. I can't help but think that if they'd crossed paths now, with the way she's developed, she might just gut him on sight.

Without thinking further, I roll over onto my stomach and find the next one. She's set up again, looking very intent. Her eyes have begun to change, dark and tired, and she's decorated with a copious amount of blood. Her arm reaches towards me as she adjusts the focus, and then, for a long while, she just stares forward with her hands gripping harshly to her temples. It's dark, darker than before, and the light of the fire behind her casts some pretty fantastic shadows across her face and chest; I dare say she might have actually been paying attention to some of my droning during movies and nature shows.

She inhales, and holds it in her lungs for so long I actually begin counting the passing moments as they tick away on the stop clock. When she lets it go, it comes out as a harsh, choked sob that makes my throat close up and my eyes haze over. I knew what she was going to say before she did.

"_I killed a man today." _

She wipes at the dried mess across her cheek and neck and rubs the foot of her palm into her brow.

"_He…hmn…He had me. Uhm, pinned."_ She talked as if distracted by something behind the camera, around her, in the brush. On the other side of the pit, I could just make out Roth, sleeping off a bad leg wound; she watched him absently before continuing. _"My arms were tied, I couldn't get away fast enough. He's, uhm, he was going to…"_

Her arms grip at themselves, scraping lines through the dirt_. "I had to. I had to. He would have done worse. I had to do it."_

He would have. Oh, Lara. Thinking about a guy doing that to her just makes me quake with anger, and even worse, things like that could have happened and I wouldn't have known. Of course I cared, but while we were there, in Hell, things happened so terrifyingly fast. We didn't have time to be precious, we didn't have the mental fortitude to keep getting up.

No, that's wrong. Lara did, more than any of us. She'd go off, come back with a new maze of cuts and twisted bruises, rest for minutes at a time and go off again.

"_At first I was making these for Sam. Now, I…I'm not sure I ever want her to see this. Sam. God, I'm so sorry. I shouldn't have fallen asleep. I knew I shouldn't have trusted that man."_

She sniffs, and sighs.

"_I'm going get her back. I've found Roth, and gotten the radio from the caverns. I had to fight some wolves for it."_ She kind of chuckles at herself in a frustrated way, but the smile dies fast_. "Everything hurts. I'm going to try to get some sleep before Roth wakes up. Til next time."_

Cut to black.

I was right. These were private, or at least, they were something she needed then without my being involved. I close the screen to the side of the camcorder and hold it to my chest, evening out my thoughts, and turning onto my side. Lara would be home from her appointment soon; she'd popped the stitches on her forehead while she was jogging and fortunately some poor lady had to stop her and direct her to the nearest hospital.

We could talk about this. I itched to watch the rest, her story, the parts her refused to tell, or that I couldn't have even guessed. After all of this, I felt like I owed her that recognition. She deserved for every moment, every scar and nightmare and memory to be heard, to be validated. That guilt, she let it weigh so heavily against her that sometimes I think she might be crushed.

The phone in my back pocket buzzes gently just as I'm getting comfortable against the pillow; it smells like Lara's shampoo, and Lara's lotion, and Lara, and even before Yamatai that earthy scent has always relaxed me. I set the camera on the bedside table and reach for it, tapping in my code and scanning the text quickly. The name at the top is simply, "The Nerd."

_Be home in 10. _

I prop my head on my hand and type with my free one, leaning it against the headboard. _Yes, ma'am._

I giggle when I can almost hear her clear her throat indignantly at that title.

_Could you order take away? I feel like I haven't eaten in weeks._

_The usual?_

_No vegetables, please. Just the chicken and beef._

_Carnivore._

_Yea, yea._

I make the call right before I pass out, somehow exhausted and lethargic from a day of pure recuperation. Just as my mind gets fuzzy and dark at the edges, I see Lara shivering close to a fire, her torn and bloodied body flickering in and out of focus.


	2. Chapter 2

I left Lara that night tucked under the covers of the only bed in the apartment, mumbling to herself in her sleep. We agreed she'd take the pills tonight; although she avoided being hindered in any way and those things knocked her out for a good ten solid hours, I could tell she wanted to be far away for –here- when I watched the recordings. She was scared. I kind of made me want to just delete everything and forget about it.

But I couldn't. Lara can't carry that burden alone, she can't survive under the pressure of a thousand secrets, a terribly guilty conscious despite her doing everything to save herself, to save us.

I hook up the usb and AV component cable from the camera to my rig at the back of the apartment, an elaborate set of analog computers, keyboards, and mics that I've called my home since we found our way back to London. I plug in the best headset I've got and adjust the settings to drown out white noise, like the fabric rustling and the noisy insects that plagued us at night. Sharpen everything else and equal out the sensitivity from background to foreground…there we go.

Alright. I slip into the giant earphones and push the volume up to emersion. I'm getting the full story here, but I won't be watching these twice. Go back to the island. Watch her. Watch her. Just this once.

_Play._

…

…

…

Rustling as she adjusts the camera against the base. She sits back nimbly on her toes and rubs her forearms in a tired, determined way.

"_I'm headed up to the radio tower to try and get a better signal, broadcast an SOS. Alex tells me that there should be a control panel in the base that can get a message out to the coast guard, or a nearby craft. He's good with these things, so I'm hoping for once he's not a complete feather-head." _

She chuckles genuinely and pushes her bangs to the side. The shadows lift from her complexion, revealing a fresh ornamentation of cuts along her cheek and lips. Her eyelids aren't hung as low as they were in the last video, and she seems a bit more optimistic with a goal.

"_I left Roth at the camp. Hopefully he doesn't get eaten by wolves before I come back. Oh!"_

She peels open the mouth of a small sack at her side, unclipping it from her belt._ "Look at this. I found these scattered about the shanties under the cliffside."_

She holds four golden coins out in the palm of her hand, nudging them carefully and turning them over. _"This must have been a well-known destination in the 1800s. Considering that it's such a wreck now, that's kind of surprising."_ She hums to herself, studying for a full minute. _"Oh, wait. This one is 16__th__ century. Malaysian? That's odd. Must have come off of one of the wrecks…bronze, this one. The others are iron and silver ore, but this one is bronze." _

She mulls them over for a few more seconds before depositing them back into the pouch. The exchange makes me smile ear to ear; even in this environment, she's that curious and starry eyed girl who had a constant love affair with the unknown.

"_Okay, trek time. I have a feeling this is going to…I don't know. Terrible luck. Anyway, later now."_

_Cut._

…

…

…

"_Well, if Sam ever does get to watch these, I think she could appreciate this." _

The camera pans as she holds it in front of her and up, and up, and up the side of a monolith of an iron rung tower. It's snowing, somehow, and the sky is dark and vague as the tower rises far into the clouds and becomes invisible. Wow. It's breathtaking. You could even make out the red lights blinking all the way at the very top, through the mists and strange weather.

"_And I,"_ she starts, turning the lens on herself, _"Get to climb every rusty, swaying bit of it, all the way to the top." _She gives me, or the camera rather, a very frustrated look. She's dirtier and bloodier than before.

"_Stole some gloves off of one of the bodies. I've…It's become easier. Fighting." _She looks at her red, red fingers for a second, flexing them in and out of fists. _"Killing. These men, they want us all dead. I don't have a choice. Anyway, this is our best shot." _She breathes once, and the screen goes black.

…

…

…

The next is a heart stopping descent in which the lens of the camera is hanging from probably the loop of her belt, another video that looks like the power button had been accidently pushed. It starts as she kicks off the top of the tower with a sharp exhale; I can see down the side of her thigh as she near-plummets, a hard grinding sound overwhelming most of the audio. A zipline maybe? She's halfway to the ground, a terrifying two or three hundred feet, when she shouts and starts plummeting straight down. I grip the muffs of the headphones tightly, giving a panicked whimper of my own. Another wire passes by for barely two frames, and she whips up violently. The grinding noise rings back as the sliding rate begins again. This rhythm repeats three more times as she fast approaches the ground, until finally she let go and plunges underwater. Thank god I thought to spring for the waterproof model.

She makes it to shore, shakes herself off and starts jogging.

"_Well, that's one way to get down."_

It's a lot of jagged, choppy running for a bit, and though I can tell it's unintentional, I continue watching. She slows down, and the camera stops jumping enough for me to hear her talking to herself.

"_Gas…perfect...I can start a signal fire."_

More running, and some very close gunfire. Then, the booming crackle of an explosion. She chuckles quietly to herself.

"_The plane, there it is!"_

She jumps up and down and the camera body catches on an empty holster strapped to her thigh, turning the lens upwards. It's a remarkable stroke of luck, but I can actually see the plane flying in close and I can't believe this shot just happened by accident. If this were an actual movie, I think I would be breathing a sigh of relief. But this, I knew the plane never made it. Something terrible was about to happen.

Just as I think it, a flash of blue lightning cracks down from the dark clouds, clouds that I swear hadn't been there a moment ago, and collide with the monstrous, screaming machine. It focuses in as the cockpit and wings burst into angry flames, barreling in closer and closer and as I watch I hear myself whisper harshly, _"Run!" _as the fiery torpedo tumbles out of the sky.

She steps back once, twice, turns, and breaks into a desperate sprint in the opposite direction. The camera falls from its perch as she reaches the start of a vicious downhill roll, launching her into a bone breaking fall. Her frantic scream overtakes the sound of shrieking metal against rock for just a handful of seconds. The lens swings and I catch a glimpse of the avalanche of engine debris that practically chased her down, on fire and smashing up tons of earth like it was nothing.

The video crackles and fuzzes violently until the video cuts out for a second, then three, and goes black completely. Audio stays for a minute after, though all of it is screaming and terrifying explosions, smashing metal, and agonizing snaps that I hoped weren't her bones.

…

…

…

The next three recordings are just audio of pouring water, birds, and static. In some of them, I hear Lara talking to herself again. Working out ideas and theories regarding the island, and my whereabouts. As she speaks, she stumbles on theories that I remember Mathias talking about. Transfering power, fire rituals. Hearing those words over again turns my insides into steel knots. She and Mathias arrived at similar conclusions, at least about the importance and manner of the rituals themselves and the history of the island.

She didn't talk about the horrific scene I'd just witnessed at all. Not to herself, and not in the thirty second audio clip I got of her talking to Roth. She mentioned the crash, but focused on the fate of the pilot. Nothing about her own wounds or the traumatic race to the bottom of the cliff. Typical Lara. Sometimes I think I don't know her at all, what with her blatant disregard for herself.

The following ten minutes are segments of wooden crashing, solarii interferences in audio, strange groaning and footsteps. I can't stop listening. Ten minutes is a long time for an audience to decompress from a stressful scene, but I felt like I needed every moment of it. I can make out the rhythm of her breathing too, if I listen close enough. Ragged, tired. She 'hm'ed to herself when she came across something interesting and swore under her breath when enemies were close. And she was almost always running; I could tell by her exhausted inhales and the beating of her feet on the rock and grass.

Then, screaming. Intense, fighting yells of frustration and terror. A lot of splashing, a lot of underwater gurgling and resurfacing, and the sound of a mountain of metal being thrown around like it was in a washing machine. Moments of silence, terrified gasps, glass cracking. More screaming. The wind being knocked out of someone, many times, rushing air. I cover my nose and mouth in the cup of my hands and will myself to keep the headset on. I couldn't in a million years guess what was going on, but I felt like I was listening to a person die. Lara. I was listening to Lara die.

There are three very distinct noises after a lifetime of that torturous drone. An impact, the flutter of a lot of fabric settling, and the recognizable sound of a body hitting the dirt hard. I lean further off my seat with every one, crossing my legs tightly in anticipation and crushing distress.

Finally, the camera's video kicks back on, and the giant monitor glows with the image of a grassy forest from the ground. There's a tarp of some kind fluttering in the background, bright green and impassive. It looks like maybe a parachute. Behind the feed, I can hear Lara's shallow, weak breaths. It stays that way for a long while, then, a hand spins the lens around sloppily, rocking the camera back and forth, and Lara comes into view.

I bark a strangled, drowning sob when I get a look at her, bottled-up tears filling my vision so fast I don't have time to stop them. Her temple is pressed to the ground still, unmoved since her apparent fall, body twisted up and face split in so many places, bloodied so thoroughly that I scarcely recognize her.

She stares at me, still; her eyes roll back into her head and her lids hang heavily over them as lips strain to open around exhales.

Brow furrowing slow, she turns onto her back and chokes on a cough.

I touch the monitor and bite down hard on my tongue. This isn't fair. I can't reach her now, I can't help her. I can't tell her that I'm alive, that I was okay and that she didn't have to do this. That I would rather die than force her through this torture. She's so still that beyond logic, beyond my brain knowing that Lara was asleep in the room on the other side of the apartment, I thought she'd died. She was pale enough, thin enough. She was battered enough. Beaten enough. Her eyes were dim enough.

She lays a hand against the ground, bites her jaw together with a hiss, and tries to push herself up right. A painful shout tears from the back of her throat as she gets onto her knees and collapses forward onto one arm. As she stands, she picks up the camera, drops it, and clips it back onto her belt. I don't think she's alive enough to realize that it's on.

I catch every fall, every weakened cry of pain, as she shuffles slowly through the forest and into another shanty town. Her feet drag along the dirt miserably, stumbling over themselves. She struggles to lift herself onto a platform against a metal wall, strains, and falls.

"_I can't,"_ she mutters, _"I can't. Too painful."_

_God. _I can't take this.

"_Come on."_ She urges herself forward, legs shaking so bad I can see it through the grime on the lens. _"Come on. Just get to the helicopter. Come on."_

My heart sinks even farther into my gut. The helicopter. I know about the helicopter. Or, at least, I know what happens on the helicopter.

She struggles into the cockpit, feet against metal once again. Prescription bottles fall around her boots as she checks each first aid kit for pills, painkillers, anything.

"_Fuck,"_ she hisses raggedly. _"Something. Please, something_." Her breathing is heavy and choppy and short, sounding very unhealthy and very desperate. She lets out a frustrated cry as the last of the bottles bounces across the slanting floor.

The aperture struggles to adjust as she steps into a light patch towards the front of the plane. A bloody, yellow thigh comes into frame, the dead body of the pilot.

"_Sorry,"_ I hear her mumble. A rustle of thick fabric is followed by a defeated exhale and the crackle of a lighter being lit. I know what comes next. I dig my nails into my forearms.

I don't watch. I don't have to. Her screams are so horrific it crushes me, it makes me crazy. She sobs, for the first since this whole nightmare started, and she shouts and hisses and writhes under the cauterizing heat of the arrow tip.

The timer ticks away five minutes passed when her tearing screams shudder out into silence, and the battery light flickers. I'm not sure when it started, but the juice is nearly gone. She rises, soundlessly, and continues back out into the chilled light of the temple-side. Her radio buzzes. I feel dizzy.

Roth asks her if she's okay.

She says she is.

I pause the feed, remove my headset, and cry into my hands until I'm too exhausted to even move.


End file.
